Big Business Honchos Congregates At IIFT’s Trade Winds 2015

Determined to guide the youth towards building a strong future of the country, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade has worked hard to bring together the big players of the industry under one roof. With the speakers sharing their thought provoking insights on various topic that largely covers different concerning issues of the country, the summit has emerged as marquee business summit across India that aims at covering all the facets of international business and provide a platform for IIFT students to interact with eminent professionals from the Industry and various esteemed international organizations.

Focusing on the healthcare care burden faced by the country, the second day had Mr. Rumy Kanga, Commercial Director, Group Marketing and Consumer Care, Abbott India as opening speaker. He discussed the challenges faced in Consumer marketing and how they differ in Pharmaceutical marketing.

Taking cues from her predecessor, the next came was Miss Annapurna Das, Director, Neighbor Markets and India Vaccines Business, MSD who elaborated on the topic ‘Customer Engagement-Exploring customer relationship beyond the purchase’. Discussing the topic in depth, she talked about the challenges faced in consumer marketing. Attributing, the existence of pharmaceutical industry to three parameters – revenue, access and impact, she talked about the nuances to be taken care in Pharmaceutical marketing.

“In India, there is very low prevalence of insurance. Resultantly, 85 percent of people pay for healthcare from their own pocket,” notified Ms Das while stressing on the importance of ‘continuous need for commercial innovation’.

Giving a handy tip to the future entrepreneurs, Ms Das pointed consumer insights (entailing access and impact), development of communication (covering awareness, management of access and affordability) and feedback as the three essential point of focus in customer engagement. Meanwhile, on industry innovation, she was of the view that ‘it’s all about partnerships and there is a need to leverage breakthrough technology’.

After the inspiring speech by Ms Das, students got the opportunity to hear Mr. Ashish Talele, Associate Director, Rheumatology, Roche Products (India) Private Limited who emphasized on the need for developing trust by creating value. “Purchase is a mutual agreement between the two parties, and has a lot to do with emotion and unless and until value is created, trust cannot be developed”, mentioned Mr Talele touching upon the theme of exploring customer relationships beyond purchase. He added that his views come as a greater significance in rural marketing where loyalty is the biggest challenge.

Further, drawing an analogy between return and investments, he compared the profit and loss statement in the pharmaceutical sector to salesperson, purchase to emotion, experience to memory and disruptive innovation to generation of new horizons for engagement. He concluded the session with the words, ‘do now what customers need next’.

Meanwhile, the second session of the National Marketing Summit was opened by Ms. Deepali Nair, Chief Marketing Officer – Mahindra Holidays and Resort India Limited who gave valuable insights into the hospitality industry. Talking of demand reshaping because some seasons will be extremely high occupying while not the rest, she discussed the importance of destination marketing, offer campaigns and special privileges for people who have never been on vacations before and about offering customers last minute deals to pique their interest.

Discussing the latest form of communication, i.e digital communication through e-mails, Ms. Neeru Sharma, Co Founder and Director Infibeam.com, talked of email campaigns and their impact on marketing. She presented an overview of the digital marketing arena while emphasizing on SMS services which need to be more interactive and capitalizing on Search Engine Optimization and how SEOs are making content more intellectual and intelligent.

“With 90% of the people having access to social networking platforms, there is dire need for content to be unique, targeted and relevant. For that, it is important to understand the arena of digital marketing well. In this regard, know-how of capitalizing on Search Engine Optimization and how SEOs are making content more intellectual and intelligent has become important. Simultaneously, there has come a need to make SMS services more interactive,” added Ms Sharma while emphasizing the need of email marketing by making it more relevant and bringing remarketing into the picture for businesses of the future.

The day concluded with Mr. L. V. Sastry, National Business Head- Aircel, enlightening the audience on the need for customer engagement through mobile usage. He talked about how companies should use business intelligence to capture customer engagement by tapping into the mobile marketing arena. He said, “Customer has become like a God. He is omnipresent, he is already there.”

He added, “When the marketer is sleeping, the customer is alive, active, talking, judging the product and service.” He concluded by stressing the need for regulatory frameworks within India, something that the country is lagging behind in.